Lenticular Flooring Could Be Used To Subconsciously Guide Pedestrian Traffic

Researchers at Tokyo’s University of Electro-Communications have developed a concept to guide crowds of pedestrians with the same lenticular plastic sheets used to animate movie posters, trading cards or facilitate glasses-free 3D. The sheets are composed of rows of curved ‘lenses’ which allow an image underneath to ‘change’ depending on the angle it’s being viewed. So in this instance underneath the lenticular flooring there’s a striped pattern that appears to shift towards the right as people walking on top of it look down.

That moving imagery, combined with the fact that we heavily rely on our vision to maintain our balance while walking, results in people sub-consciously following the motion they’re seeing and moving/keeping to the right. So the idea is to have flooring like this installed in busy places like train stations or stores to guide the flow of crowds without the need for confusing signage or even electronic messages which rely on power to work. Not to mention the opportunities for advertisers to sell you stuff underfoot.

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